Rating: 
Summary: The DVD is the ORIGINAL version!!!
Review: If you check my review posted below, you will realize that I am very fond of this flawed but fabulous film. The GOOD NEWS about the DVD release-----it's the ORIGINAL version, NOT the putrid Musical re-make!The Less-than-Good news is that the transfer (obviously from a print)isn't as crisp and contrast-y as one would ideally like. In addition, it's a bit disappointing to realize, assuming this realease is authorized, that MGM/UA is not interested enough in this film to release it on their own, and thus has licensed it to Good Times, a serviceable, but second-rate outfit. Oh, well---guess I shouldn't complain. It's just GREAT to have it in the DVD format. Oh yes,.....the SOUND on the DVD is fabulous--bright, clear, dynamic, crisp. And, incidentally, I bought and watched Harryhausen's "7th Voyage of Sinbad" recently.....great, awesome stop-motion work, of course (I remember seeing it in the theatre in early '59----I was literally shaking with excitement and terror simultaneously! Had to go out to the lobby to regain my composure as they were climbing through the hills of Colossa looking for the Roc's egg! Subsequently had cool dreams of the cyclops chasing me on the beach!....) BUT----HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT-----I'd still prefer "JACK" ANY DAY! It's so much more human and engaging. Watch the scene after Jack has killed the first Giant and the King asks him
"Have you seen the Princess"......it's so charming----nice acting, beautiful music (you catch a bit of the doll's music box dance transformed by the orchestra under the dialogue...), then we meet Jack's mother, touchingly played by Helen Wallace...things like this just add so much to the enjoyment of a fantasy film. And the SET-UPS!!!....despite some of the crude visual quality---the experimental angles and odd shots which they used....shots from above the giant....dropping the rope around his neck...the bucket of flour in his eyes, his falling and nearly crushing Jack...the 2-headed giant about to deliver the "coup-de-grace" to the sea serpent with the anchor when Sigurd (in dog form) saves the day by jumping on the giant's back to distract him, while Peter (in chimp form) tosses rocks on the giant, in order to give the serpent time to revive from his beating......the harpy hovering over the ship, swooping, diving, ascending with the animated Jack on his back, the duo-death-dive into the sea with Jack and the Harpy side-by-side--------NO WONDER the film went so far over budget and took so long....these were incredibly COMPLEX SHOTS being done by a bunch of guys who were practically making it up as they went!! There is NOTHING this
daring and spectacular in "Sinbad"; just lots of straight-on shots, impressive though they may be. But I do go on.........
Rating:
Summary: Family fantasy with scary creatures
Review: Jack The Giant Killer is a great family fantasy movie. I've never seen the musical version, but it sounds like a hideous botch-up, and I can't believe people are disappointed because this DVD is of the original version and not some re-hash that had nothing to do with the production's original intention.
I think the film is excellent just the way it is. It's the tale of a simple farmer (Jack) who gets caught up in an evil wizard's plans to abduct a beautiful princess to be his bride. I've heard it said that the musical version was created to tone down some of the film's more frightening moments, and I can see why younger childeren could get nightmares after watching some sequences. There are several such scenes. Early on in the film, the princess is having a party and one of her birthday gifts is a miniature dancing jester in a musical box. Creepy enough to watch as it is, this ugly thing comes alive after dark and grows into a hideous giant demon. In another scene, ghostly flying witches descend on a ship to try and seize the princess, who is being smuggled away to a secret location to protect her. This sequence, involving some very freaky apparitions, genuinely frightened me as a child, especially the moment when the ghost in the guise of a skeleton in a wedding dress surprised the princess in a small dark cabin. Eek!
The animated monsters are of variable quality, ranging from the enlarged music box demon (the best) to the sea serpent that appears near the end (the worst). Maybe the money started to run out towards the end of the film! But the plot is engaging and never dull, mostly involving Jacks battle with the hammy but evil King Pendragon who has designs on the princess and is sending all these monsters to kidnap her, but also involving sub-plots such as the part where the princess is turned evil by a spell from Pendragon and almost double-crosses Jack - until the spell is broken.
All in all, tremendous fun. Yes it does look a bit dated now, and a lot of kids aren't going to be enthralled this easily any more, but it can still give an hour and a half's worth of solid entertainment.
Rating: 
Summary: technically unimpressive, but fun
Review: Jacky Rowan becomes the unsuspecting trickster hero of Faerie in modern-day Ottowa. Along the way to fufulling her quest to rescue a faerie princess, she makes friends and finds her purpose in life. Nothing terribly new [as all archetypical stories are], but a very fun read, if occasionally a little technically awkward. ***1/2 A note on the properties of Faerie: the fey folk must have some uncommon magic when it comes to starting vehicles without keys.. because for us poor mortals it takes much more than a little fiddle under the dash to hotwire a car. ;)
Rating:
Summary: Ain't no Harryhausen...
Review: Lower your Harryhausen-like expectations and you'll be pleased with this fantasy adventure. Nowhere near the Sinbad series but the transfer looks good for a disc of this price....
Rating:
Summary: "Special Place of Honor"
Review: MGM/UA/s PREVIOUS release (VHS and Laser Disc) of "Jack the Giant Killer" was, in fact,the ORIGINAL NON-MUSICAL version (thank god), even though the box described it as "Complete with musical songs..". If the current version IS the musical, AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS;...it is trash! However, if it is the original NON-musical version, then buy and enjoy it! Yes, producer Edward Small deliberately imitated Harryhausens' "7th Voyage of Sinbad" (which Small had actually turned down in the mid-50's; when "Sinbad" went on to reap huge profits, Small was kicking himself and thus set out to produce his "own" version). Yes, the animation isn't as polished as Harryhausen's......yes, the production values were not as high... But "Jack" is still something that Harryhausen films could never be....ENGAGING on a human level...fresh, quick-moving, genuinely enchanting. The crude animation, in a way, adds to the charm of the film, which manages to capture the essential fantasy, fairy-tale world in a way which Harryhausen's humorless, heavy-handed approach could not. Kerwin Matthews is, as always, sincere and engaging, Torin Thatcher is more controlled than in "Sinbad", Dayton Lummis is a cool King Mark, Barry Kelley is a hoot as Sigurd the Viking. Don Beddoe...always a fine, understated actor, here performs wonders of subtlety and telling characterization while stuck inside a giant prop bottle. Even Robert Gist, who portrayed "Hal" (Jack Buchanan's side-kick) in "The Band Waqon" turns up briefly as the ill-fated ship's captain. And, of course, my FAVORITE character actor of all time...the underrated, forgotten WAlter Burke plays Garna, Pendragon's henchman, in his usual skilled way (Anyone ever seen him in the episode of "Ben Casey" called "The Men Who Raised Rabbits?"-he's superb). Only Anna Lee's "witch" scene is embarrasingly bad, as is the bulk of Judy Meredith's Princess Elaine (she was Frank Sinatra's main squeeze at the time the principal photography was done (Summer, 1960). Yes....the music of Paul Sawtell is no match for Herrmann's "7th Voyage" score, but it is rousing, tuneful and, in the case of the mechanical doll dance, absolutely enchanting. The final harpy scene (designed and animated by Jim Danforth) is first-rate, the Wah Chang-designed giants are bizarre and fantastic, the witches, who due to complications during filming were never realized on screen as the designers intended, are still cool in a child-like, imaginative way (a "Fish" witch?..a "Bunny" witch?...a mini-Godzilla witch with a harp-like mouth that emits a gale-force wind....? ). And those rockin', swaying' KNights of the Dragon's Teeth, always my favorite sequence and, as director Nathan Juran said, a scene which "didn't contain one dollar's worth of special effects" (!)....just stop & start the camera, explode some powder, march in those Knights, and add Sawtell's mechanized music....voila! .....another simple, exciting fantasy sequence that keeps the film bubbling along. Yeah, I know it ain't Citizen Kane.....but "Jack The Giant Killer" gets my "Special Place of Honor" award; I saw it on its first release when I was 11, and it became the final, yet most endearing example of cinematic magic (next to "The Wizard of OZ")that I was ever to experience as a child.
Rating:
Summary: "Special Place of Honor"
Review: MGM/UA/s PREVIOUS release (VHS and Laser Disc) of "Jack the Giant Killer" was, in fact,the ORIGINAL NON-MUSICAL version (thank god), even though the box described it as "Complete with musical songs..". If the current version IS the musical, AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS;...it is trash! However, if it is the original NON-musical version, then buy and enjoy it! Yes, producer Edward Small deliberately imitated Harryhausens' "7th Voyage of Sinbad" (which Small had actually turned down in the mid-50's; when "Sinbad" went on to reap huge profits, Small was kicking himself and thus set out to produce his "own" version). Yes, the animation isn't as polished as Harryhausen's......yes, the production values were not as high... But "Jack" is still something that Harryhausen films could never be....ENGAGING on a human level...fresh, quick-moving, genuinely enchanting. The crude animation, in a way, adds to the charm of the film, which manages to capture the essential fantasy, fairy-tale world in a way which Harryhausen's humorless, heavy-handed approach could not. Kerwin Matthews is, as always, sincere and engaging, Torin Thatcher is more controlled than in "Sinbad", Dayton Lummis is a cool King Mark, Barry Kelley is a hoot as Sigurd the Viking. Don Beddoe...always a fine, understated actor, here performs wonders of subtlety and telling characterization while stuck inside a giant prop bottle. Even Robert Gist, who portrayed "Hal" (Jack Buchanan's side-kick) in "The Band Waqon" turns up briefly as the ill-fated ship's captain. And, of course, my FAVORITE character actor of all time...the underrated, forgotten WAlter Burke plays Garna, Pendragon's henchman, in his usual skilled way (Anyone ever seen him in the episode of "Ben Casey" called "The Men Who Raised Rabbits?"-he's superb). Only Anna Lee's "witch" scene is embarrasingly bad, as is the bulk of Judy Meredith's Princess Elaine (she was Frank Sinatra's main squeeze at the time the principal photography was done (Summer, 1960). Yes....the music of Paul Sawtell is no match for Herrmann's "7th Voyage" score, but it is rousing, tuneful and, in the case of the mechanical doll dance, absolutely enchanting. The final harpy scene (designed and animated by Jim Danforth) is first-rate, the Wah Chang-designed giants are bizarre and fantastic, the witches, who due to complications during filming were never realized on screen as the designers intended, are still cool in a child-like, imaginative way (a "Fish" witch?..a "Bunny" witch?...a mini-Godzilla witch with a harp-like mouth that emits a gale-force wind....? ). And those rockin', swaying' KNights of the Dragon's Teeth, always my favorite sequence and, as director Nathan Juran said, a scene which "didn't contain one dollar's worth of special effects" (!)....just stop & start the camera, explode some powder, march in those Knights, and add Sawtell's mechanized music....voila! .....another simple, exciting fantasy sequence that keeps the film bubbling along. Yeah, I know it ain't Citizen Kane.....but "Jack The Giant Killer" gets my "Special Place of Honor" award; I saw it on its first release when I was 11, and it became the final, yet most endearing example of cinematic magic (next to "The Wizard of OZ")that I was ever to experience as a child.
Rating:
Summary: Charming Film, With Highly Variable Effects
Review: One of the true treasures of my childhood, I saw this again as an 38 year old and had much the same feeling. This is a good one, with a few significant flaws. First, hopefully, I'm not the only one...but I found the princess MUCH more attractive and (yes) sexy after she was changed into the yellow-eyed, green-skinned evil incarnation. Maybe it was the tighter dress, but she really did it for me, especially considering the "nice" princess was so vapid and bland. As for the effects, they were also mostly charming. The harpies attack on the ship to steal the princess was actually frightening! As for the stop motion effects, by Jim Danforth, they were amatuer at best, crude at worst. It's no wonder he never stepped out from Harryhausen's shadow. Still, in all, a good film!
Rating:
Summary: Great childrens fantasy disc
Review: Ordered this film for my children, having seen it on TV about 4/5 years ago. My children adored it, they are 7 and 4, and have watched it 3 times in 4 days. A bargain, even after trans-atlantic shipping.
Rating:
Summary: Modern fantasy page turner
Review: Retelling of Jack story in a modern framework. Fun read, but more derivative and less fully developed characterization than in his later works. Still available as _Jack of Kinrowan_.
Rating:
Summary: Generally sharp DVD
Review: The DVD is free of blemishes and is quite colorful; however, some images are pale, no doubt due to the aging of the original materials. This is especially apparent in composite shots where the models look bright but the backgrounds don't. Probably the best this film is going to look.
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